Tag: ClassDojo

Replied to Leaked documents document China’s plan for mass arrests and concentration-camp internment of Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities in Xinjiang (Boing Boing)

In addition to setting out a number of logistical and planning guidelines — such as sanitation and public health measures — the documents detail a system of points-based “behavior modification” tools to punish and reward prisoners who modify their conduct to the specifications of the Chinese state. This points-based system runs in parallel to the “predictive policing” tools that the Chinese state uses to identify and target people for rendering to its camps.

The use of points-based behavior modification sounds like ClassDojo?
Bookmarked Vast amounts of data about our children are being harvested via apps used by schools. This is what is being collected and stored (AARE)

A major problem with creating reports like this is that they only judge students on a small number of behaviours that ‘count’. They ignore, and even deter, diversity. For example, teachers have to identify behaviours they want students to exhibit so they can monitor them using ClassDojo. Default options include working hard, on-task, and displaying grit. This list has to be limited to a number of behaviours that is manageable by the teacher to track. The selected behaviours end up being the ones that count, others are ignored, thus promoting conformity.

Jamie Manolev, Anna Sullivan and Roger Slee explore the sensitive data collected on students, teachers and schools by educational apps. The authors document some of these points:

This data includes

  • First and last names
  • Student usernames
  • Passwords
  • Students’ age
  • School names
  • School addresses
  • Photographs, videos, documents, drawings, or audio files
  • Student class attendance data
  • Feedback points
  • IP addresses
  • Browser details
  • Clicks
  • Referring URL’s
  • Time spent on site
  • Page views
  • Teacher parent messages

Moreover, ClassDoJo says it ‘may also obtain information, including personal information, from third-party sources to update or supplement the information you provided or we collected automatically’.

This reminds me of Ben Williamson’s point about Class Dojo that sensitivity is produced over time:

The ‘sensitive information’ contained in ClassDojo is the behavioural record built up from teachers tapping reward points into the app.

I think that it needs to be noted that although there is a focus on ‘wellbeing’ the affordances of the application can be used in different ways. For example, Bianca Hewes has used it to monition 21st century learning.

Liked ClassDojo poses data protection concerns for parents by Ben Williamson; Alasdair Rutherford (Parenting for a Digital Future)

It is time to support parents and teachers to ask critical questions about ClassDojo. As the owners and controllers of a vast global database of children’s behavioural information and a global social media site for schools, its entrepreneurial founders need to be more transparent about what they intend to do with that data, how they intend to generate income from it, and how they want ClassDojo to play a part in interactions between children.

Bookmarked

Ben Williamson shares a request from his children’s school to provide a t-shirt to make a Growth Mindset cape. He unpacks this and shares his concerns about a focus on moral implications and economics deriving from the work of James Heckman.